During drilling of long bore holes for e.g. exploration drilling, considerable time is consumed for handling drill string components during drilling, when the drill string is subsequently lengthened, as well as for replacement of drill bit which has to be performed regularly because of ongoing wear of drill bits during drilling.
Different suggestions have been made to facilitate this handling, one of which being a handling device for a rock drill rig being previously known from AU-B-64377/96, wherein drill string components are brought into a supporting device in the form of a one way sleeve for the transfer of the drill string component between a horizontal and a vertical position. This known device does not provide stable handling of the drill string components.